Swedish court throws out espionage case against Russian due to lack of evidence

The Swedish court found the citizen of the Russian Federation and Sweden, Sergey Skvortsov, innocent of espionage for Russia, as it considered the evidence gathered by the prosecutor's office to be insufficient, reports Reuters.

In August 2023, Skvortsov was charged with illegal intelligence activities against the United States and Sweden between 2013 and 2022.

According to the indictment, Skvortsov's company was used to purchase technologies in the West to circumvent sanctions and for the benefit of the military industry and the armed forces of the Russian Federation.

The Stockholm District Court ruled that Skvortsov used his business in the same way as the prosecutor's office claimed, but the prosecution failed to prove that such activity amounted to espionage.

The court believes that the activities of Skvortsov's company "were aimed exclusively at the acquisition of technologies and were not aimed at obtaining information that could be qualified as espionage."

On March 1, 2019, an employee of a technology company was arrested in Sweden on suspicion of espionage for Russia.

On November 22, 2022, a married couple from Russia was arrested in Sweden on espionage charges as a result of a special operation.